The Mel Robbins Podcast - Reinvent Yourself: How to Let Go of Past Mistakes and Create a New Version of You

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

In this episode, you’ll learn how to let go of regret, overcome regret, let go of past mistakes, and step into a powerful new chapter. Today, Mel is joined by one of the most powerful and honest voices of our time: Charlamagne Tha God. He’s a Radio Hall of Famer, a three-time New York Times bestselling author, an Emmy-winning producer, and co-host of The Breakfast Club, one of the biggest radio shows in the world, among many accolades. But none of that is why this episode matters. This is a raw, inspiring, and deeply personal conversation about redemption, reinvention, letting go of mistakes, and becoming a better version of yourself.  Charlamagne opens up about childhood trauma, addiction and the moment he finally chose to change his life. He shares how he became a better father, how he broke toxic cycles, and why grace is the key to growth.  You’ll learn: – How one simple decision can set you free – How to stop punishing yourself for who you used to be – A simple practice to help you find peace, even when life feels heavy By the end of this episode, you’ll know that no matter where you come from or what you’ve done, you can reinvent yourself. You can change yourself. Starting today.  For more resources, click here for the podcast episode. Note: this episode includes open conversation around mental health, including anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Please take care while listening.If you liked this episode, and want to know more about how to become a happier, healthier you, listen to this next: Why You Feel Lost in Life: Dr. Gabor Maté on Trauma & How to HealConnect with Mel:  Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them TheoryWatch the episodes on YouTubeFollow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast InstagramMel's TikTok Sign up for Mel’s personal letter Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-freeDisclaimer

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. If you've ever regretted the choices that you've made, or you just have this feeling that you're meant for so much more than where you are right now, that there's some greater purpose that's just uniquely meant for you, but you just don't know what it is? Well, I have good news. You have press play on the exact conversation you need to hear right now. I just walked out of our studios here in Boston.

I am so moved, like moved to the core by what our guest today is about to share with you. I feel so inspired right now, so energized, and by the time you're done listening to this, you will as well. You're about to hear a story of redemption, reinvention, forgiveness. You're going to learn how to find your purpose and how to change the very essence of who you are. So if you feel weighed down by the mistakes you've made in the past, this conversation could set you free.

Because one of the most potent, influential, and authoritative voices in the world today is here to help you change your life. He's a Radio Hall of Famer co-host of The Breakfast Club, which is one of the most popular radio shows in the world, a three-time New York Times bestselling author and an Emmy award-winning executive producer. His name?

Charlemagne the God. Charlemagne is here to share things that he's never talked about before about the mistakes he's made and the lessons he's learned. And what you're about to hear, it is gonna shake you to the core. Because Charlemagne delivers so much insight, so much wisdom with a level of conviction and passion,

it is going to move you. He's going to tell you that you are so much bigger than the mistakes that you've made or the life that you're living right now. Nothing could be more worthy of your time than listening to this, which is why I am absolutely thrilled that you're here. Hey, it's your friend Mel. Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am ecstatic that you

are here with me right now. You know, it's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. But today, today you are in for something truly special. And if you're a new listener, I also just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I am so thrilled that you're here. And because you made the time to listen

to this particular episode, here's what I know about you. I know that you're the type of person who not only values your time, but you also want to use the time that you have in this life to create a life that is driven by purpose. And if you're listening to this conversation today because somebody sent this episode to you, that is so cool because you have people in your life that care about you and they not only care about you, they see a bigger possibility for your life, which is why they recommended that you listen to this episode.

So thank you for trusting them, because it shows that you see bigger possibilities for your life too. And so does the person that you're about to meet, Charlamagne the God. Charlamagne hopped on a plane this morning after co-hosting one of the biggest radio shows on the planet. It's called the Breakfast Club. And just to understand how influential his perspective and his voices, four million people listen every single week to the Breakfast Club.

To put this like in a visual sense, four million people, that's 50 Super Bowl stadiums where every single seat is full and everyone is tuned in listening every single week. And that's just the people listening to the radio. There's another six million more people that follow the show on YouTube. And that's not all that Charlemagne does. He's been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author, an Emmy award-winning executive producer. He's also the co-founder of the Black Effect Podcast Network, one of the most successful podcast networks in the world, where he has produced 47 shows that have won all the biggest awards that are available to shows in podcasting.

He's also the founder of a publishing imprint, Black Privilege Publishing, in partnership with Simon & Schuster, which has released 12 books and already released bestsellers, including his latest, Get Honest or Die Lying. He's hosted several award-winning television programs and he is also the founder of the Mental Wealth Alliance, which focuses on advocating for mental health. And to top it all off,

he's also an ambassador for the food bank in New York City. But his life wasn't always this way. And you're about to hear the extraordinary story, the twists, the turns, the lessons learned, the regrets and the mistakes that he's made. And look, you can always learn from your own mistakes. But today, you have the honor of getting to learn from his. So Charlemagne, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm so thrilled that you're here.

Thank you for having me, Mel. I am a huge fan of yours. I appreciate that. And the feeling is definitely mutual. Oh. You know, I bought my, my, my, my Let Him Theory book in here and it's so funny. Last week, my wife comes to me and my wife goes, I ordered you a book you need to read it immediately because I've been complaining about some things right

just really I was complaining about people. Yep. And she was like you need to read this book immediately and it came and it was the let them there and I was like oh yeah I'm doing Mel's podcast on Wednesday and she was like really? And then today she sent me tickets because you're gonna be in New York at the Beach and Theater. Yes. She's like I want to go to this. Yes. That's just all God. I was like, wow, I'm literally doing our show on Wednesday. Well, we are destined to be together today together.

And I'm going to come see you in April on your show. And so this is the beginning of a lot of amazing things that we're going to do. And here's how I'd like to start. Could you tell the person who is listening right now that spending time together with us, what they might expect to be different about their life or the life of somebody that they care about based on everything that you're about to share with us today about your life,

lessons learned, the incredible things that you sell and you talk about in your bestselling books. What could change about their life? We'll see. And the reason I say we'll see is because you know, you never know where a great conversation is going to take you. You know, like we're all on different spiritual journeys. I feel like right now sitting here on the Mel Robbins podcast, this is part of a spiritual

journey that I feel like I've been going on my whole life. So let's see what comes up. Well, I'm going to tell you something. I am a huge fan of yours. I have devoured your books. I listened to you. Thank you. There is not a doubt in my mind that by the time our conversation is done, and you so generously share mistakes made, lessons learned, the tools that

you use in order to transform your mind to build this extraordinary career, the things that you've in order to transform your mind, to build this extraordinary career, the things that you've learned as a parent, about forgiveness, about regret, about peace. You cannot listen to this conversation I'm going to predict and not feel completely transformed. I would not have invited you to be here if I did not think that you were of service

to a bigger mission and that listening to you is one of the most worthy things that somebody could do with their time. Ooh, maybe that's what it is. I want people to hear this conversation today and immediately walk away and say, you know what, I need to go be of service. I need to answer that call that's going on in my spirit right now that's telling me to

go out there and just go do something. Do something for myself, but more importantly, go do something for somebody else. Go be of service. That's what I want people to learn from this conversation, how to be of service. Well now it feels like we're in church, Charlemagne, and I could not be more thrilled to be here with you, but all of this wisdom that you're about to pour into us, it actually didn't come from all the success, it came from all the struggle.

And even though you are one of the most influential voices in the world today, the person who's listening may be meeting you for the first time. So what would you like them to know about you? You know, right now I'm a multimedia personality from radio to television, the books, the podcasts, like you said, but I come from extreme humble beginnings.

Mount Cornish, South Carolina, raised on a dirt road, grew up in a single wide trailer. You know, mom was a school teacher, an English teacher who kept the book in my face. My dad, you know, did construction, but you know, he had his own issues with mental health and, you know, run ins with the law and, you know, run-ins with the law and, you know, drug addiction and substance abuse. But you know, the one thing that we always had was love. And they always, especially my dad, I always say my dad raised me out of fear and not love. And...

What does that mean? He didn't want me to end up making the same mistakes that he made. And he would always tell me that if I didn't change my lifestyle, especially when I started, you know, really getting in trouble in the street, that I was going to end up in jail, dead, or broke sitting under a tree. So that was literally his mentality. He didn't want his oldest son to end up in jail, dead, or broke sitting under a tree. So he really used to be on me,

but he would discipline me for things he didn't necessarily teach me. What does that mean? I remember being in therapy. He really used to be on me, but he would discipline me for things he didn't necessarily teach me. What does that mean? I remember being in therapy. The first real breakthrough I had in therapy is realizing that. I'll give you an example, right? I remember one time I had just got my license. And so I'm following him.

He was like, yo, follow me as I'm driving in the car. Just follow me. All right? So I'm following him. Mind you, I'm a 16-year-old kid. I'm following him. He's driving. So he's driving down Gilear Road in Montecone South Carolina. I'm following him. Mind you, I'm a 16-year-old kid. I'm following him. He's driving. So he's driving down Gilear Road in Montecone, South Carolina. I'm following him.

When you're driving down Gilear Road, you veer off into a highway called Highway 52. So there's a stop sign. He doesn't stop at the stop sign. He just goes through on the highway. So what do you think I do? I just go through on the highway. So then he pulls over.

So I pull over behind him. He gets out the car, road runs down. He smacks the shit out of me, tells me to pay attention. I didn't see that stop sign. And I'm like, you didn't see the stop sign? I didn't say that to him. I'm like, you didn't see the stop sign? But that's my point.

He would discipline me for things that he never taught me. So yeah, he raised me very hard. I always said it was out of fear and not love. Just it was the fear that I would end up, you know, making a lot of the same mistakes that he made. But I would say one thing you do gotta learn about your kids is that your kids are gonna live their life regardless. No matter how much you try to hold on to them,

no matter how much you try to discipline them, they're going to still live their life regardless. And guess what? You gotta let them. You gotta let them. You gotta let them. Well played. That's right. Well played. Talk to me about the name Charlemagne the God.

When I was in night school, cause I got kicked out of two high schools. So I was in night school. So how old were you talking? Probably the same age, like 17, maybe 18. I'm not sure. So I graduated from night school in 1998. I'm sitting in night school.

And at the time I used to call myself Charlie Chrick because, and this ain't no sound so stupid now when I'm old, but it's like, you know, but we used to have a crew called the infamous Buddha head. So all of us took names of marijuana. So you have like Mikey marijuana, Icobotism, and I was Charlie Kronick, right? Bobby Buddha, like that was our names. And I thought I'd say my name was Charles because when I used to sell crack, I would wear a hoodie, give this alias because I didn't want the guys and women who were buying crack for me to go back and tell my parents. I'm from a small town.

So everybody's judgmental. Even though you're buying it from me, you still go tell my parents. And so I'm reading in a history book about Charlemagne. And Charlemagne, it says Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great. And he was a Roman emperor who went around spreading religion and education. And I literally was like, that's a cool name. I'm gonna start calling myself Charlemagne. And you know, the God comes from the 5% teachers.

And the 5% teachers, they say God is a Greek word derived from the Aramaic words, which means wisdom, strength, and beauty. So I'm like, I'm gonna start calling myself Charlemagne the God, which really didn't make no sense because Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great. So it's like Charles the Great the God. But guess what? I was 19 years old smoking a lot of weed. So it didn't really have to make sense.

It just looked cool. And I always said that's gonna look really good on a marquee one day. You're a good marketer. I said that's gonna look really good on the cover of a book one day. But it also means I've read in your work, that God is within you. Absolutely. And talk to me more about that. You can either submit your will to the God in you or you can submit your will to the devil in you.

And you know, God is in each and every one of us. It says in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 says, God created man in his image according to his likeness. And I feel like, you know, if you keep that mindset, it'll at least give you something to constantly strive to. It'll give you something to constantly look towards and know that you have that, you know, that inner being within you. Like, knowing that you're really a spiritual being living in human existence.

And I mean, I've always literally tried to move like that. Like, you know, I'm one of those people that actually believed my grandma and my mom when they told me God was always watching, you know? Even though I didn't always make the right decisions, I still strive to move like God was always watching because God is within. I am an extension of my creator. So I want you to talk to the person and speak to that like moment in your life where you are dealing drugs. You are using an alias because you

don't want your parents to find out, which is, you know, smart thinking. You know and believe as a spiritual person that God is always watching. And so you have the sense because you've already talked about choice. There must be this tension of you feeling like this isn't what I'm meant to do, but I'm making a choice to do this. Absolutely. What do you want to say to the person? Because I think that's a very relatable thing in life, where you have this sense of a greater purpose, but you are trapped where you are now. And you

even see yourself, I think about moments in my life, whether it was drinking too much or drugs, or it was cheating on people that I was with or stealing or whatever the hell it may have been. Things that I knew in the moment were choices that I was making. And I felt like I had no other choice. But I still do you know what I mean? But I still felt like there was something better for me, but I didn't know how to bridge it. Like, what would you say to the person that's listening that actually feels that right now

in their life. Man, number one, whatever you're doing that's negative, you can't escape from it. There's a million, tens of millions of people who have done the exact same thing that you're currently doing and you know how that movie is going to end. And it's going to end the same way for you if you continue down that path. And what I would tell folks is you don't have to know what it is you wanna do, you just know that you wanna do something. So why not put positive energy into whatever it is you're trying to do,

or just put positive energy into your life period. Like, you know, an acronym that I love is a positive energy activates constant elevation. Positive energy activates constant elevation. Positive energy activates constant elevation. And that's peace. Oh, it is. Yeah, positive energy activates constant elevation, right? So for me, it was, I know that if I constantly

keep doing this, like my dad said, I'm gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree. And when you start seeing that actually happen, whether it's to you or other people around you, if you continue down that path, once again, you made the choice, you gotta deal with it. But for me, I decided to say,

yo, I'm gonna do whatever I gotta do to not do this. So I worked at Taco Bell, I worked at a clothing store in the mall called Demo, I did telemarketing, I was the guy that would call your house and try to sell you 20 CDs for a penny. Like I did so many fucking odd jobs, like just, just to avoid being in the street.

Was there a moment though, because you know, I used to, I was a public defender for legal aid and in New York City. And I do feel like when you are in that loop of making really bad choices and you feel like you have no options, you're also surrounded by people that are doing the same thing. It takes a level of courage to wake up and go, I'm not doing the same. And that's so true. Do you remember, like, was there a moment? Absolutely. So what was the moment where you're like, I'm not going down like this?

When the first time I got arrested, I was sitting in the back seat of a car and one of my homeboys shot at somebody. So, you know, we all ended up going to jail. Literally, they came and got me out of the high school, the second high school I had went to because I got kicked out of the first high school. And my mom was teaching at this high school, Scratford High School, and they thought I would behave more because my mom was there. So I ended up getting caught up in that situation. I think I did 45 days in the county jail. My dad ultimately ended up bailing me out. And I tried to be

on the straight and narrow a little bit. But to your point, the allure of the streets, right? Like, you know, a lot of the people that I was hanging around and being with, they were in the streets heavy. So I was like- Well, it's your community, it's your friends, it's what's around you. And then you start to tell yourself the story. I got no other options. Absolutely. And so it goes from acting up in school to now, all of us are getting a little bit older,

but we're getting introduced to things like the drug game and I'm watching people make a little bit of money. So I want to make a little bit of money too. And I remember I was involved in a drug bust. You know, the house that we used to sell dope out of got busted. And I remember just being in those handcuffs and all of us,

literally like 11 or 12 of us in a holding cell in Moncks Corner South Carolina in the Berkeley County Detention Center. And I was just like, yo, I'm back in jail again. And I remember looking at the steel toilet in the holding cell with all of these people in it and just throwing up. Bleh!

And I was like, is it for me? Like literally, I'm going to figure out my life in a real way. I am going to, because another thing that I always thought about, when my dad would tell me that people end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree, I had a lot of people that I used to look up to, who didn't make the best choices,

and I saw that happening to them. Something just started clicking to me like, yo, there's no redo on this thing called life. Like, this day that you're living right now, you're never getting back. So you're going to have to start making changes in your life right now to get to where it is that you need to be.

Because you know, one day you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be 30. And Biggie Smalls had this great lyric. Biggie Smalls said, "'Being broke at 30, give a brother the chills.'" And that's where my mind was at. And I was still broke at 30, but I was on my way. I was on my way because I was already in the radio business at that point.

Well, I want to highlight something because I believe that the only thing that it takes to turn your life around is the decision that the way you're doing life isn't working anymore. And that's what you just described. And I think so many people, I've come to believe, and I'd be curious to hear what you think about this. I've come to believe that the single biggest obstacle that actually stands in people's way. And yes, there are big factors around poverty and money

and racism and bias and all this stuff. But the biggest obstacle is actually discouragement and despair, the sense that there's nothing you can do. And I love your story and I love what you stand for because you, time and time and time again, have made a decision. How I'm doing things no longer works for me and I don't give a shit what other people

are gonna think about it, I'm gonna figure this out. And I don't even have to know how I'm gonna change my life or what it's gonna look like. I just know I'm not doing it like this anymore. And so you make the decision, you work a bazillion jobs. How the heck do you get into radio? Because I think the other thing that happens for people, and it's probably, I can feel so many people sending this episode to their adult kids, listen to this man.

How did you go from no experience, a bazillion odd jobs, having been arrested to actually making a break in radio and in the business? You said a lot of things that, you know, just make me really think about that journey, right? Like you used the word just now, you said discouragement. I had a lot of encouragement early on,

even though my dad wasn't always doing the right things and even though he was hard on me, he was always encouraging me to do the right thing. Same thing with my mom, she was an English teacher, always encouraging me to do the right thing. So even when I was getting in trouble, I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. So to answer the question, the positive energy that activates constant elevation. I used to want to rap like most people who come from communities like I come from. When you black and you know, you're growing up in a certain environment, the people you see who look like you are usually in entertainment or athletics. I'm only 5'6", so there wasn't going to be no NBA for me, right?

But as far as... You could be a jockey. Maybe. But I was always, my grades was always so bad, I could never play football. And so for me, I always wanted to rap because I used to always love storytelling. Always loved storytelling. You know, my mom, like I said, my mom was an English teacher. I grew up on the Booker program, reading four books a week, you know, to get a free pizza. You know, my mom would always tell me to read things that don't necessarily pertain to me.

So I grew up reading Matt, Judy, Bloom and Beverly Clearly. So I was always in love with storytelling. So I'm in a recording studio, right? Because if you want to be a rapper, you got to be where people are rapping. So I was in this recording studio, two of them actually, one of them was called TNT Studios, another was called Never So Deep Records, and the guy who owned Never So Deep Records is a great mentor to me to this day named Dr. Robert Evans, but at the studio, I met a radio personality named Willie Will, and he worked at Z93 Jams in Charleston, South Carolina. And I'm a curious

person. If I see you doing something positive or doing something that looks cool, I'm gonna ask you. And I just asked him like, how did you get into radio? And he said, I got an internship. And I said, what do I got to do to get an internship? He said, go down to the radio station and ask for an internship. And I'm like, it's that easy? I said, I'm not in school and then he was like, so? He's 90, this is 1998 Charleston, South Carolina. Things were totally different. And that's what I did.

I went down to the radio station and I filled out my internship papers. And I started as an intern. Like literally, I was the guy that would drive the radio station vehicle to the concerts or to the different remotes and help them, set up their posters and things like that. And then that eventually turned into me getting a gig in the promotions department, which is just being a paid intern. So I was making with $5 an hour or something like that.

And then I would always be in the studio with Willie Will. And Willie Will would bring me on the mic sometime and you know, we'd be talking. And I remember one day my man, Ron White, who was the music director, still a good friend of mine to this day, he comes to me and he goes, you ever thought about being on the radio? And I'm like, no, but I am now. And so he started putting me on Sunday mornings, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And they used to do something called voice tracking, where you would record your voice and they would air it.

And, you know, I was too much for Sunday mornings. So they started putting me on Saturday nights, 7 to 10 it was voice track, 10 to midnight it was live. And that's where the bug bit me. And I was like, this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. Well, you not only got the bug, you dominate on radio. And I wanna read to you some of your words

from your book, Shook One, which is an incredible book. And there was one passage in particular that I wanted to read to you, because we were kind of like talking about this theme of the power of making one decision. Like my life is not working the way that I want it to work. It doesn't feel the way I want it to feel. And you had this second huge epiphany because you had become known as like this shock jock and you were like saying all kinds of crazy stuff about people and that was kind of the way

that people knew you. And you had this epiphany that this is not who you want to be anymore. And so I want to read to you is from page 245 of your bestselling book, Shook One. For many years, I was edgy and risky with my words on my mic. I pushed the envelope on topics like sex. People would listen to me and say, man, Charlemagne is wild. There's a reason Rolling Stone called me the hip hop Howard Stern. Today, I have a much different mind state. While I'm always going to be authentic with my life's experiences,

I'm embarrassed by things that I've said in the past. There are moments when I just want it all wiped from the internet. I cringe thinking about my daughter watching some of my old clips, but I can't surrender to those fears. I've come to accept that I can't be a prisoner of my past because the truth is, largely with the help of therapy, I've evolved a great deal over the past few years. I'm not the same thoughtless

instigator I used to be. I'd love to have you share about the decision to I'd love to have you share about the decision to make a huge risk in your career because you gained so much fame and influence by going about things a certain way and then you made a decision, I don't want to do this anymore. What happened and how have you changed? Same way that when I was sitting in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, and you know, my father would tell me if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm gonna end up in jail dead or broke sitting under the tree and, you know, watching, you know, people who I loved, who made poor choices

end up in those circumstances. It's the same thing now. I love hip hop, you know, I love being a hip hop radio personality, but a lot of the hip hop radio personalities that I grew up admiring, there was a glass ceiling and they didn't realize it. And so they thought that they was growing, but they kept hitting their head, kept hitting their head, kept hitting their head.

And I'm looking at them now and I'm like, oh, these people are washed. Like, I don't want that to be my life in the future. And that was from a professional level. And just from a personal level, it's like, yo, my daughters know their daddy. They know their daddy is silly. They know their daddy is silly.

They know their daddy is a very unserious person, but there's just some things that I don't wanna have to explain because when I said these things, I was on drugs, I was drunk, like I was wilding, like I wasn't in the right mind space, but you know what I have learned, Mel, is that you gotta love every version of yourself. Like, you know, every-

How the hell do you do that? I mean, come on now. You have- How the hell do you do that? I mean come on now. You have to. How do you do? Because every single one of us, the person that is listening right now, can look back at a moment in time. And you just cringe, you want to erase that person, we beat ourselves up over it.

How the hell did you get to a point where you could love every version of yourself? Because I'm 46 years old this year. I was born in 1978. So I'll be 47, right? I'll be 47 this year. I know 20-year-old me did not know what 46-year-old me knows. I know 15-year-old me didn't know what 30-year-old me knew. So it's just like, yo, you got to give yourself grace because you just did not know what it is that you know now. So why would you ever beat yourself up for what you did not know? And like I said earlier, to me,

life is just a process. I don't believe in good or bad. I just believe in everything is just one long process. And there's things that happen for you along the way, not to you. There's things that happen for you along the way. And I accept it all. I accept the good with the bad. And one thing one of my therapists says to me is that you can't have any of your success without having any of your problems, right? So any problems that I had growing up, any problems that I had when I was young,

that all led me to this point where I'm at now. And I go back and I think in my mind, I go hug the 8-year-old version of myself. I hug the 16-year-old version of myself. I hug the 20-year-old version of myself. I have conversations with those other versions of myself all the time. You do? Like, tell me what's the... Like, how do you do that?

Can you believe we got... Can you believe we're here? Can you believe we got it? Yo man, I'm glad 25 year old you decided to go this way. I'm glad 19 year old you decided to get in the radio. I'm glad you read all of those books when you, eight year old you, nine year old you, 10 year old you, read all of those books when you was younger. Like, I know you and your pops had some issues, man,

but he did give you the autobiography of Malcolm X when you was very, very young, and it you and your pops had some issues, man, but he did give you the autobiography of Malcolm X when you was very, very young, and it taught you all about growth and evolution, and, you know, knowing that somebody like Malcolm Little can become this great individual like Malcolm X and introduce you to, you know, the nation of Islam, where they took the worst of us and made them the best of us. So, you know, you got to give every single version of yourself grace.

Like, Marty McFly didn't go back into the future and go back to the past and cursed his parents out. He tried to help his parents. Help his parents get on the correct path. We have to do the same thing with ourselves. You gotta give every version of yourself that ever existed grace. One of the most beautiful things that you have said so far,

and you've said a lot of things that are very beautiful and empowering and important, but I really wanna make sure that the person listening takes this and applies it. You literally just said, you gotta give yourself grace. Why on earth would you punish yourself now for things you didn't know back then? Absolutely. What a beautiful gift you can give to yourself.

And I also love how I'm starting to kind of read between the lines that you're also extending it to other people in your life. Absolutely. That we need to be able to extend that grace to people in our lives and stop punishing them now for the things that they didn't know back then. You know, I'm curious as you sort of like have this

like transformation in your mind that is both business, I see that there's a ceiling to this shtick. And also as a person, I just don't want to operate like this anymore. When you started to transform yourself on air, did you have any anxiety at all about how the dedicated huge hip hop audience fan base that you had built would be receiving you?

Not really, because I know that we're a smart community. I grew up listening to Public Enemy, I grew up listening to Wu-Tang Clan, I grew up listening to Scarface and Killer Mike, and all of those brothers always had things in their music of socially redeeming value. So I know who we are. I just think that sometimes there's people in

our community that got to have the courage to grow up. I always say that the two greatest hip hop albums, well, the two most important hip hop albums in the future, people are going to look back and they're going to say Jay-Z 444 and Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale and the Big Stepper. Because if you listen to the content of those records, Jay-Z is talking about the maturation of a man. He's talking about not cheating on his wife anymore. He's talking about issues with his father. He's talking about going to therapy on that album. I remember hearing that album on my third... It came out the day after my 39th birthday. Like literally I was on a roof in New York, just turned 39, midnight hit, me and

my wife were leaving and I put it on in the car and it was like he was talking to me in that moment. That was the soundtrack for my life right then and there. Where I was in my life, therapy, dealing with issues with my pops, being faithful to my wife, like being apologetic, you know, the things I've done to my wife, right, the cheating on my wife. Like that was mind blowing to me and I was like, oh, okay, God, I see exactly what you're doing.

Kendrick Lamar, you listening to his album, Mr. Morale and the Big Stepper, he's talking about, yo, his wife is on this thing, yo, you really need to go seek some therapy. He's got this song on there called Father Time, where he talks about his issues with his dad. Men don't talk about that. You know, it's always when it comes to daddy issues,

you think women, but no, the daddy issues that you have as a man are real too. So it's like, I knew we were beyond ready for these conversations because these conversations were already happening in our community. They were just being done in secret. When I put out that book, Shook One, it came out in 2018. And I remember it was the week of Thanksgiving 2018. I'm home in Montecone, South Carolina, and my dad calls me. And my dad is like, yo, man, I just finished reading your book, shook one. And he goes, you know, your cousin, you know, just committed suicide. My cousin is 25 years old, young man, tried to complete suicide four times.

And he was like, he used to do a lot of odd jobs with my father. And my father was like, yeah, man, between that and your book, I just wanted to tell you, man, you know, I was going to therapy two and three times a week, and I tried to commit suicide 30-plus years ago, and, you know, I was on 10 to 12 different medications for my mental health. And I'm like, I never knew any of this. And so I remember asking my mom, like, Mom, did you know Dad

was dealing with all of this? And my mom was like, I thought he was just playing crazy to get a check, right? But he really was dealing with his own issues. And he never told me this, but imagine if he would have told me this when I was young, I would have knew what those panic attacks were. I would have knew what those bouts of depression were, but he never ever told me any of those things.

So I think our community has always been ready for these conversations. Hip-hop community, the black community, it just takes somebody to have the courage to speak them. Well, you wrote about that realization in your latest book. And I want to go back though to what you said, because you were talking about how it was 2018. People talk openly now about anxiety and depression. And you have done extraordinary work in terms of destigmatizing those topics. And one of the things that I'm curious about

is how the hell did you even know that you were having anxiety or struggling with depression? Because you're right, it was not talked about openly, like you wouldn't be caught dead walking into a self-help aisle. And most people didn't even understand the signs of anxiety or depression. So how the hell, like in 2007, 2016, did you realize that this is something you were dealing with?

Conversations with other people. I always credit folks like Neil Brennan, my young guy, Pete Davidson, who'd been going to therapy for a long time, you know, women in my life like Debbie Brown, who was just an amazing spiritual, you know, leader, has been a long time friend of mine for almost 20 years. These were people who I always heard

having these conversations. And when I was still dealing with the anxiety and still dealing with the depression, even though I was supposed to be at the greatest point in my life, because I was making more money than I've ever had in my life, because I was making more money than I've ever had in my life, and I was having more success than ever.

But the panic attacks were increasing, and you know, the bouts of depression was still increasing. Plus, I knew I wasn't really living the life I was supposed to be living. I was out here being the, you know, hip-hop rock star, right? So, I wasn't doing right by my wife. All of these things were, you know, coming down on me. And I remember just, you know, saying to myself, like, I'm going to try therapy. I'm just going to myself, like, I'm gonna try therapy.

I'm just going to try it. Me and my wife had a conversation, she was like, go. And so I just started going. And then that's when I started to get the language to understand what I was dealing with in regards to anxiety and in regards to depression. But anybody who's first started therapy knows, you go for one or two things

and you start peeling back layers and you know Unearthing traumas that you didn't even know existed. I could listen to you all day And I'm glad we're not done because I have a lot more questions And I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors And I want to give you a chance to share this with people that you care about Everybody deserves to see a bigger possibility for their life And I am definitely thinking bigger just listening to the conversation so far. Don't go anywhere. Charlemagne and I will

be waiting for you after a short break. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are getting to spend time together with Charlemagne the God. I am so excited about everything that you're sharing with us from your life, Charlemagne. And you know, while we were on break, I was thinking about a topic I wanted to ask you about. In your mega bestseller, Get Honest or Die Lying, you actually say, I've been called a fake mental health advocate. Or critics will say that I use discussions of mental health as a shield to distract folks from all the wild shit I used to say

and talk about on the radio way back when. So for the record, I started to work on my mental health because I knew that if I didn't deal with my trauma, my trauma would ultimately deal with me. I love that if I didn't deal with my trauma, my trauma would ultimately deal with me. I love that last sentence. If I didn't deal with my trauma, my trauma would ultimately deal with me. What does that mean?

Because I think a lot of people don't understand what trauma is and how widespread it is in people's lived experiences. Trauma is things that have happened, well to me, things that have happened to you. And when those things happen to you, you just let it fester. You don't actually try to get any healing for it. And what we don't realize is trauma hurts you. And hurt people hurt people, right?

So it's just like, you know, when you are dealing with your, when you go out there and you deal with your actual issues, you start projecting that level of healing onto people. You can only meet people where they are. So if you meet me when I'm a hurt person, you know, who's upset because I got, you know, molested when I was eight or upset because, you know, of how my father used to discipline me, like are upset because I got beat up when I was 18 years old,

19 years old for running my mouth too much, which I deserved by the way. But still, it's like you project that onto other people. And what you also realize when you get older is that 99.9% of everything you're dealing with as an adult is a direct reflection, or connection to something that happened to you as a child. It's like I'm literally just talking to my inner child every day telling him to calm down.

Calm down. We know why that is causing you to act that way. And so like you got to go deal with your trauma because if not, I've seen a lot of people self-sabotage, I've seen a lot of people self-destruct, turn to drugs, turn to alcohol, or they're just mean, nasty, rude people. And that might be kind of worse than the drugs and alcohol, because then people will leave you on an island

unto yourself. You know, you're right about that too. You write in your book, Get Honest or Die Lying, when I see folks who are willing to say anything and attack anyone for attention, I just shake my head because I remember that feeling. Absolutely. I know that behavior is eating them alive on the inside.

Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about that because I think it is so incredible that you have gotten to the point where you can actually see that kind of behavior in other people with grace and kind of understand what it is. What are you talking about in that section? It goes right back to what I just said,

hurt people, hurt people. I can listen to people say certain things, and I'm like, oh, that person is miserable. Because you would never say that about somebody else if you weren't miserable. I mean, you know, I used to always say, Michelle Obama say when they go low, we go high. But sometimes you got to take it, take it to hell with them. Right.

But sometimes if you're willing to take it all the way to hell, what does that say about you? I'll tell you something. I'm saying this and I haven't shared this with anybody, You know, I came up on the Wendy Williams, right? Wendy Williams was a great mentor of mine, you know, still a friend of mine. Everybody sees the situation that she's in right now. She's able to move around a little bit, literally just past Monday, and she said something at dinner that was profound.

And she was just like, we were just talking about just her in the radio and just the way she used to be on the radio and what her future's gonna look like and would she come back and be that same individual? Of course she couldn't be because she's not that person anymore. She's 60 years old now, right? When she said something, she said,

you know, I think I might be in this situation because of how I used to talk about people. That's what she said, you know, she's trapped in the conservatorship. And I was like, really? I was like, I said, what you mean, like karma? She said, yeah, you know, just like God. I've never heard Wendy talk like that in my life, but it was just confirmation for me that I made the right choices. Made confirmation for me that I had the right understanding

of the power of my words and the energy that I was putting out there, you know? And I don't necessarily believe that she's in that situation because of that, but that was what she said. So I just, you know, I tell everybody, all of the podcasters and the YouTubers, you know, the radio personalities, this microphone has a lot of power power and you can cause a lot of hurt or you can cause a lot of healing, you know, with the things that are coming out of your mouth. I would tell you to choose the healing. So, I think every single human being has said things that they regret.

Since you've done all this work on yourself and especially in light of what you just shared that Wendy shared with you, have you reflected at all on how your actions in the past or the things that you used to say on the mic have hurt other people? Oh yeah, absolutely. How do you process that for yourself? You gotta give yourself grace, you know? Like I did what I did, I said what I said.

I know the mind state that I was in, but I think sometimes we don't think about the mind state other people may be in, and you don't know how fragile somebody may be, and you know how something you said could have really caused them, you know, lifelong trauma or trauma that they're trying to work through. And you get that through conversation. Like sometimes people will come up to you and tell you like, you know, you really hurt my feelings when you said such and such.

What really, really, what really started to change a lot of it for me was when like a lot of the young artists started coming on the show. And like the young artists who, like I remember, you know, somebody like a young thug, I remember a young thug was saying like, man, you know, I used to hate when you used to say crazy stuff about me. And you know, you used to really fuck with me. You used to really bother me. I'm like, why? He's like, because you Charlemagne.

My mama didn't listen to you, and aunts and everybody listen to you, and you don't think about that, right? Like when you're on the microphone, you don't know these people, but they're humans too. So the same way you might go online and see something somebody says about you that you don't like, or you might be like,

yo, that ain't true. Like it's the same thing with other humans. So yeah, I do think about that a lot. But once again, I got to give myself grace because I was in survival mode. I tend to forgive people for what they did when they was in survival mode. You tend to do a lot of wild things

when you're in survival mode. And for me, when I got on Breakfast Club in 2010, I had been fired from radio four different times. That was the seventh radio station I worked at. I had a daughter that was two, three years old. I wasn't going back to Mount Cornish, South Carolina. It was by any means necessary. Like I didn't care what I had to say or who I had to say it to.

And it was the same thing when I used to work with Wendy. I was literally just Wendy's attack dog. Wendy bought me there because Wendy knew she was going to make the transition to television. And she didn't want to be the same personality she used to be. So she had me there to literally be an attack dog. Like literally, get her, get them, get them.

Like literally. And so it was just like, nah, that's not what I wanted for myself. You also write in Get Honest or Die Lying about any chance I get, I walk out into my backyard, I put my hands on a tree, I lean my head against it and start to meditate. That's tree hugging.

It's a valuable practice. I was taught by my sacred purpose coach, Yadi. Here's how I first learned it. Can you tell us a little bit about, like what is, what are you doing when you're doing that? Like I'm trying to imagine you walking out in your sweatsuit with your bare feet Can you tell us a little bit about like what is, what are you doing when you're doing that? Like I'm trying to imagine you walking out in your sweatsuit with your bare feet and you walk right up to that tree

and you wrap your arms around that tree. Man, salute to Yadi. Yadi Alba. Yadi is a sacred purpose coach. Yadi, man, it's funny, me and Yadi, it started with face down, ass up. Face down, ass up. Face down, ass up. And the grass?

Yes, I know you're thinking about Two Live Crew, but that was the running joke. The running joke was like, yo, go outside, take your shoes off, do some grounding, lay in your backyard. I'm like, lay in my backyard? Like lay down, put your belly on the ground, put your face to the ground, face down, ass up.

I know it sounds crazy, but literally that's what I would go do. And you would be surprised the healing energy that comes. What do you feel? When you do that. Put me there. Peace. Peace.

Do you feel energy come up like from the earth? Yes, you can literally, you can literally feel it from the earth. I know when people, like, oh, he's a tree hugger. Yeah. And you would be too if you could just take your shoes off, walk on the ground, put your forehead up against the tree, lean your back against the tree, lay down on your belly. If you want to just lay, if you want to lay on your back, lay on your back on the ground, just take a few deep breaths,

look up at the sun, look up at the sky, just pray, just talk to God. And I guarantee you, if you allow yourself, no phone, no distractions, I guarantee you, you will feel some type of release. Well, you know what's amazing about that? Is you're reminding us all of what we know to be true. Because if you think about any experience

where you've gone on vacation and you've actually had a chance to lay on a beach or to sit down on a trail or to lay down in a park while your kids are swinging and you just take a moment, you feel at peace. My favorite thing to do is to be in the water. I feel like the direct connection to God is in the water looking at the sun.

So when I'm in the water, I'm looking up at the sun, squinting, praying, talking to God, telling God what it is that I want, what I'm thankful for, a lot of gratitude. Sometimes it's not even, I don't even ask for nothing. I just go out there and just say, thank you, God, thank you. That gratitude is a lost art. You know, everybody has this sense of entitlement nowadays.

Everybody feels like, you know, that the world is just supposed to open up and give you things. It's like, I'm grateful for every opportunity. I even sit here on Mel Robbins' show, I'm just like, man, thank you, God. This is a great opportunity. Like, I'm grateful for everything.

And when you in that water looking up at that sun, just expressing gratitude, the peace you feel. If the person that's listening is just at a point in their life where they've got like the metal toilet moment and things just feel like it's just gone to hell. Made so many mistakes, they don't have the grace yet that you're talking about the fact that you need to extend to yourself. Do you have any suggestions or advice for how you begin that practice of gratitude when you feel like

you're just screwed up? Well, you should say thank you because whatever you're going through, things could probably always be worse. And if you don't believe me, just turn the news on. Turn the news on. There's somebody going through something right now that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, but that person is actually, you know, going through it. So for me, when I find myself in those metal toilet moments, I'm here.

What am I supposed to learn from this moment? Thank you God for the experience of going through it. Like I'm really big on that. I'm really big on thanking God when things are not necessarily going my way, because they're probably going my way. You understand what I'm saying? I have this thing where I feel like you can stand in this moment and you can look backwards in time travel and go, okay, I may not like what I see. I may not have deserved that. It may have been very painful, but I can actually in this moment look backwards and see how everything led me uniquely here. Absolutely. I think it's an incredible skill and what you're accessing when you are practicing

gratitude in the way that you're recommending is you're actually teaching people how to stand in this moment. And in the gratitude of thank you, even though I don't know where this is leading, you're actually practicing faith because you're saying, I'm grateful because I know it's leading me somewhere that I can't yet see that is meant for me and I won't get there without this. That's right. And I'm 46 years old. I've lived enough life to know

God has not led me in the wrong direction yet. So whatever moment I'm standing in, I'm supposed to be standing in in that moment and I need to deal with it. That's why my wife bought me to let them theory is because one of the things that I've been is just dealing with is just wondering about other people. Meaning like-

What about other people? I've had different experiences in my life where sometimes people resent me for what I'm actually doing for them. Meaning like you can be actually doing good things for a person, or have done really good things for a person or you know, provided opportunities for a person and that person will grow to resent you. Like I've literally had, I've had a friend say to me one time,

I don't want to do this deal with you because if I do it, people are going to continue the narrative I only get things because of you. And I'm like, that's strange. Like, you know what I mean? Like, cause I would love to have a me. And I've had a lot of people in my life provide me opportunity. I've had a lot of people in my life get me on the right path or, you know,

allow me access to things that have gotten me opportunities. So why would you ever feel like, I don't care if I'm with one person that's provided me 10 different opportunities. Like, why would that ever feel like, I don't care if I'm with one person that's provided me 10 different opportunities, like why would that be a thing? And I've had just friends in my life who regardless of how much I've done for them, they act like I did nothing. And I'm not the type person to be like, remember I did this for you, I did that for you.

I just do things. I don't even care. Like I just feel like that's what you're supposed to do when you're in a certain position. You share, you know, the wealth. You share the opportunity. So to find out that that person is like, oh, he don't do nothing for me. What?

Now you gotta run down the list in your mind. Now I gotta go in my mind and be like, was I bugging when I did this? And to me that feels cheap to have to do that. But sometimes you gotta do that to remind yourself, it's not me, it's this person. And that is data about who this person is and where they are.

And so I can see that clearly when I say, let them say these things. Let them be ungrateful. Let them be so insecure about their own power and success and capability that they're actually threatened by my generosity. Let them be so concerned about what everybody else thinks of them that they need to distance themselves from me because they are clearly insecure about their own power and skill.

And so they're trying to manage what other people think. Can you expound on the threatened by your own generosity? Yeah, of course. So when somebody, I used to be this person. Like I used to be a person who believed that there was a limited amount of success to go around. I used to believe that if Charlemagne were just dominating on radio, there was no room for me because you've already done it. And so if you would extend a hand, at first I would be grateful because I would feel seen by somebody that I really respect and I would feel supported.

But as I start to build something, I would then have to confront the fact that I'm only in a certain place and now I make a mistake and instead of seeing you, Charlemagne, as somebody who's leading the way, somebody who is there as inspiration, somebody that provides a formula, somebody that provides celebration and support and cheerleading and advocacy for you. I make a major mistake because I have a very small mind. And I think there's only so much to go around. So now I start to see you,

the very person that led the way and that cheered for me and that supported me as a person that I'm now against, because I now want what you have. And I don't actually see that the world is abundant. When it comes to success and money and friendship and love and all and peace and healing, these things are in limitless supply. And the only thing that, the only person that can take something that's meant for you is you. That's it.

It's so sad that when people look at the game of life, right, what happens is everybody is Delta hand and some hands suck and some hands are better. That's just how life is. It's not fair. But you don't win the game of cards by staring at the hand that somebody else is holding. That's right. You win the game of cards by staring at your own hand and figuring out how to play them and how to be a better player. And how do you do that in life?

You learn from other people. Because you and I, and you and your friends, you're never playing against each other. You're only always playing with them. And if you are dealing with people in your life that reveal to you, after you have supported them, after you have shown up for them, that they are actually just transactional, that's because of their insecurity.

Absolutely. That's why. And it hurts because you see the potential in other people. And so you give and give and give because that's one of your core values to be of service. But then when somebody starts to turn against you or all of a sudden is antagonistic toward you, it just feels weird. Absolutely. I'm basically saying, let them be on their own journey.

Let them be very scarce in their mindset. Let them not understand the way that the world works. Let them not understand me and let me give this a little space so that I can give them the grace and dignity of their own experience, but I'm not wasting time and energy managing this person anymore. That's right. But that shouldn't stop you from being who you are. Like I got my niece, Luther, my niece, Nala Simone, and she says this and it's very genderless when she says it. She was like, you like to save hoes. Stop trying to save these hoes, right? And I can't stop being me.

Meaning that God's not going- Well, you can save hoes all you want. Just don't expect them to become a church lady. That's right. They may become one. Yes, they might be. They may. So I'm saying like, God's not going to judge me

based off how people treat me. He's going to judge me based off how I treat people. Right, and here, this is where the power comes, because I want to give you this. So the let them theory, the first part is let them, because that's where you actually recognize you can't control what another person is going to do with the support that you give. You cannot control that, right? Your control is never in what other people are doing.

And we waste all our time and energy worrying about what people think and say and do and how they act, and we have expectations, and we have to learn to just let other adults be who they are and be who they're not. And what these people in your life are showing you is they are not abundant people. They are not secure. And so when you lift somebody up, and you've already talked about this, if they have not done the internal work, you can lift them up on the outside, but you're still dragging up the devil inside them, right?

That's right. And so we tend to attack the very thing that could actually help us. And as you're lifting up somebody to a different level and they have not done the internal work to be at that level, they will literally turn against the person that lifted them up. It's because of insecurity.

And so you've got to let them reveal what they're, who they are at their core and how they're going to react to your generosity. Then you go to the let me part. Let me remind myself, I actually always have control because I get to choose how much time and energy I put into this relationship moving forward. And your power is in your values. You give because you're a generous person.

You give because you believe in lifting people up. You give because you believe God is in all things and you are grateful for all things. So that is how you show up. That will never change. But people will reveal that they are not in that same energy space as you. And then that's just data, let them,

so you can better protect your time and energy. But don't stop giving, just not to them. Is that helpful? That is beyond helpful, non-helpful. Cause I'm the type of person I feel like if anything you build only benefits you, it's not big enough. So I'm never gonna stop being of service to

people. But what you said is absolutely true. Once you get that data and you know who a person is, you know whether to pull away or how much to give or not to give at all anymore. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's all that it is. It's actually, you know how you talk about gratitude. Thank you. Thank you for revealing how you feel, because now I can protect my time and energy. I am so thrilled that you're here. I know as you're listening to Charlemagne, you're thrilled that he's here too. I want to hit the pause so we can give our sponsors a chance to share a few words. And while you're listening, share this with people that you care about.

And don't go anywhere because Charlemagne and I, we're just getting started and we're going to be waiting for you after a short break. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are hanging out with Charlemagne, the God. We're talking about purpose. We're talking about redemption, reinvention, forgiveness. There are so many things that you're here to teach us, Charlemagne, based on the mistakes and the regrets that you've made. And one of the things that I wanted to ask you about is this. So in your book, Get Honest or Die Lying,

you talk about how much you hate small talk. Why do you hate small talk? Because it's bullshit. Why do you think it's bullshit? Because you're not really, two things happen with small talk. And Mel, I know you know this. People will come up to you, like, you know, I really like the frame of your glasses, Mel. You know that's not what they want to talk about.

They got something else they want to ask you. So they're just beating around the bush to ask about it. I'd rather you just come to me with whatever it is. I don't want the appetizer. I didn't order appetizers. I want this great entree. When it comes to conversation, give me the entree. I don't need to be warmed up. Especially when you know what it is you actually want.

You know what the request is. You know what it is you want to talk about. Don't try to warm me up to the conversation because it's just bullshit and we know it. Waste of time. Waste of time. You know, you write and get honest or die lying. This is chapter 28, true intentions. One of the best ways to avoid making small talk on any level is to focus on your

IG. No, not your Instagram. The IG I'm discussing stands for intention and goals. Can you break that down for me? What is intention and goals? Intention and goals. Like, you know what the intention of your conversation is and you know what the goal you're trying to reach in the conversation is. So just get to it. Like you know what it is. That's literally what the opposite of small talk is. The opposite of small talk is I have an intention, I have a goal, I'm going to go up to this person and I'm going to have the conversation.

I remember being a young guy doing radio in Columbia, South Carolina. First time I ever met Wendy Williams. She's down there doing her nationally syndicated show from one of the stations in Columbia. I walk in the studio, I got mixed tapes and I got parody songs I want her to hear and I'm like, yo, I got these mixed tapes, I got this parody song I want to hear. I give it to the board, I'm like, yo, put this in. Wendy goes, yo, take that mixed tape shit to my motherfucking husband. Literally, just like that, verbatim,

like no small talk, no beating around the bush. I wasn't offended. I go, well, where's your husband? She was like somewhere in here. So I went looking for her husband and he was in the conference room. Guess what? He was just sitting in there.

He had time to listen, right? But that was me not having no small talk. Hey, this is what I'm here for. I'm a radio personality. I got these parody songs, these mixtapes I want you to have. She didn't have no time no small talk. Hey, this is what I'm here for. I'm a radio personality I got these parody songs these mixtapes. I want you to have she didn't have no time for small talk She's trying to do her show and that got me on the right path We forged relationship that ultimately led me to New York How on earth do you deal with the criticism that you get on social media? I don't care

I really I really don't I don't pay no attention. That's something I stress to everybody around me. Stay off social media. We are all in verbally abusive relationships with our smartphones. Why? Why would you allow somebody to talk to you like that? You wouldn't allow somebody to talk to you like that in real life. So why do you go online seeking it? Why would you go look at comments in a YouTube channel

or comments in a, you know, on Twitter? I ain't been on Twitter since 2019. Like everybody running now, cause of Elon Musk. I forget Elon Musk. I ran cause of my mental health. I need to protect my peace. I used to get on Twitter every morning and say, thank you God for blessing me with another day of life.

Guaranteed like clockwork, it would be somebody saying, I was praying you died. You know what I mean? So it's like, why would I put myself up to that? I don't need to go on Twitter to thank God. Like thank God every day of my life. So for me, it's like, just don't read it. Like literally turn your phone off.

Like I remember my man, Trick Trick, he's a rapper out of Detroit. I remember one time I saw him say, man, soon as I do this, and he turned this phone off and put it down, I don't even know what the hell y'all talking about. And listen, ignorance is bliss.

I ask anybody that works with me, I've come into radio stations sometime, did you see such and such? Nope, I didn't. What happened? Like I love being clueless because literally why would I care about what another person's opinion of me is?

And the other thing I tell the folks is they're supposed to talk about you. If they're not talking about you, then you're probably not doing what it is that you're supposed to be doing. You're not making no impact whatsoever. So whether or not they're talking good about you or whether or not they're talking bad about you, they're talking and the algorithm doesn't know the difference. Oh, God. You're a genius. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. That's just a little common sense. Because, you know, I write about it in the second book about the tsunami of, you know,

social media, because what we don't realize is sometimes we spend so much energy on people we don't like. Right? So you're constantly talking about that person, talking about that person, or that person says something, so everybody's coming at that person. But then that person's actual supporters, they start coming too, they start commenting. So now everybody's arguing in the comments about you. But the algorithm don't know.

All they know is Mel's been mentioned 10,000 times in the last hour, so who cares? Have fun, Enjoy yourself. Talk to me about your morning routine, because you seem to have really locked in the things that you do in order to keep your mental health and your focus intact,

to keep yourself in peace, to keep you connected to God and gratitude. How do you start your day? Will you walk me through it? 415, the alarm clock goes off. I immediately hit the snooze button. Eight minutes, the snooze button goes off again. So then I get up, say my prayers, go take a shower, get out the shower. I try to sit and meditate for at least five minutes because I'm cutting

it close like in the morning to do morning radio. It's a game of inches. So I try to do at least five minutes, but I read out of two affirmation books every day. I read out of Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stunt, and I read out of Robert Green's Daily Laws, I think it's called. And then I read what those affirmations are. I kiss my wife while she's asleep. I blow kisses to all my daughter's rooms. Then I get in my car, go downstairs, and I'm either listening to a podcast like yours,

or Jay Shetty, or Debbie Brown, and I'm either listening to a podcast like yours or Jay Shetty or Debbie Brown or I'm listening to, I love, I love the Jon Stewart's The Weekly Show whenever he does his episodes because I think that he just does some of the greatest political conversations right now. But that's usually what it is. I just try to listen to something I know is going to get my energy where it, where it needs to be. And my intention every day is the same. My intention every day is to serve. So I just wake up every day and I say, God, I'm grateful for another day of life.

I'm thankful for another day of life. And whatever the day brings today, because I know it's going to be a new adventure every single time. I know it's never a dull moment. I'm ready for it. How has having daughters changed you? Man. In ways that I can't even imagine because I'm nowhere near the type of

disciplinarian my father was. Like I'm not putting any type of hands on my daughters in any way, shape or form. I apologize to them a lot. My oldest daughter, she's 16, you know, I snapped at her about something. We going back and forth about something. I had to check myself and realize like, oh, this don't got nothing to do with her. You know, it's something I'm projecting on to her. I'm projecting my fears onto her the same way I said my father raised me out of fear and not love. So when you apologize,

I remember apologizing to my 16 year old daughter and she said to me, it's okay, you've never done this before. Meaning this is your first time as a father, this is your first time raising a 16 year old girl, which is very true. So I'm not going to always get it right. And you think about how, man, you long for like, just apologies from your parents. Because I know a lot of the things that they might have done to us when we were younger, they didn't know any better. They were just doing the best they could with the knowledge and the information and the wisdom they had at the time. So it's the same thing now. So when you ask me how my daughter's changed me, I really don't know yet. I just know I am being changed. There is just something that's changing me as just

a human because the one thing I'm really fighting now is realizing that you got to relinquish control because you cannot control anything that happens to these four little beautiful souls. You can't nothing like you know, the only thing you could do is love them, encourage them. You know, I try to give my daughters the best experiences that they possibly can have and just teach them to be really great people. The things that my mother and father and my grandmother instilled in me

that really stuck with me my whole life, I try to give to them. Like, when I tell them, you know, manners will take you where money won't. You know, when I tell them, when you walk into a room, make sure you make eye contact with everybody, you speak to everybody, like just, just say hello. Like, you know, cause everybody is a human being worthy of that, that level of respect. Treat the custodian the way you treat the CEO.

Like, you know, that's, I'm big on that, especially with my nine year old. Cause if there's any one of my daughters who is, um, a hell raiser, like I was when I was a kid, it's my nine year old. But you know, my only thing with her is you need to have that same smoke for the teachers at school. Don't come to the parents and the people that love you and be crazy. Because I was crazy everywhere when I was your age. I don't tell her that.

But that's my mindset. You know, but I do tell her, you know, you come home and I know you act with us the way that you don't act with at school. I don't ever hear about this type of behavior with you at school. At school you see the, oh she's a pleasure and she's great, but at home you, you know... Do you know what that means? No, what does that mean? Because I used to complain about my kids this way too.

Okay. A parenting expert therapist told me that that actually is a sign... Oh, they feel safe. That they feel safe with you. Yes. Yes. Because they've been holding it together at school. Yes. And you know, I really want to acknowledge you and your wife or something. And like it's just, I think it's so beautiful. You know, you started by talking about choices and we've talked a lot about the power of a decision, right? And you talked in the very beginning of this about how your dad parented out of fear,

the choice that you have made to do work on your inner self and to learn how to extend yourself the grace that we all deserve, and to also learn how to show up and do better in that simple story of your daughter reflecting back to you the things that you have shared with us today. Dad, this is your first time doing this too. She is actually evidence that all of the healing that you have done and all of the work that you and your wife have done have actually broken that pattern of parenting

out of fear and have broken the way that trauma gets passed through families. And I just really wanted to acknowledge that because that is incredible. Man, you know, I remember during COVID, because my daughter is 16. I think she might have been like 13, 14, we started putting her in therapy, not for any reason, other than why not? You know, it's like, she's an athlete. She's working out all the time, right, for cheer.

So it's the same thing. It's just like, why not go learn what you might be dealing with early? And I remember during COVID, she came to us and she goes, she was crying, I'm overwhelmed. She was like, I'm overwhelmed. She said that, she's crying, I'm overwhelmed. She was like, I'm overwhelmed. She said that, she was like, I'm overwhelmed right now. And I was like, do you think me or your mom would be upset

that your grades are slipping during this unprecedented time? None of us have ever had to experience anything like this. I can only imagine being in eighth grade and you're sitting there trying to do clay projects on the floor and you're sitting there trying to do clay projects on the floor and you're, you know, trying to get through class during the day on your computer.

Like I can only imagine. But the fact that she had the language that come to us and tell us she's overwhelmed, my nine year old and six year old, same way I talked to them about going to therapy. I tell them about, you know, dealing with anxiety, dealing with depression. Now you got movies like, um, Inside Out. You know, you got movies like Inside Out that are showing them their emotions and their feelings. Inside Out, part one and part two. So these kids have the language and that's all I really want.

I don't know how possible it is, but I've always said, all I want to do is raise trauma-free babies, man. That's it. I mean, I know that they're going to go through their own experiences in life and they're going to have their own things that they got to deal with. But I want to at least raise, have them have a trauma-free childhood as much as possible.

Well, it's very clear you and your wife are giving them the tools to actually respond to anything that's happening, which is extraordinary. And I just want to make sure that you, can you hear the acknowledgement and the work that you've done and the impact that it's having

on the daughters that you're raising? Yeah, I receive it from you. You know, for me, I'm just trying to be a good father, trying to be a better father than my dad was. I mean, it's not like my dad was a bad father at all. I don't ever want to say that, but he will tell you about his own issues. And just me learning what I've learned,

not just about him, but through the work I've done on myself, I know all the mistakes that he made. And he was one of my models for going to do the work as well, because I just did not want to make the same mistakes that he made, especially in regards to him and my mom. And his infidelity broke up his family. And I saw the impact that had on, you know, not... Me, to a certain extent, but definitely to my younger brothers

and, you know, younger sisters. So it's the same thing, you know, I didn't want that to happen to my family. So it's just like, yo, in order to not be what my father was, I had to be better. Well, since I learned very late what he probably could have taught me early, I just, you know, started doing the work on myself and applying it to my everyday life. And it's been an amazing blessing. You know, you talked about this earlier, but I want to read a passage from Get Honest or Die Lying.

It turns out that my father had been dealing with severe depression and anxiety most of his life. He was going to therapy several times a week and was on multiple medications. At one point things had gotten so bad that he had to check himself into a mental health rehab. He'd even wanted to kill himself but hadn't because he didn't want to hurt his children. You know, you mentioned how you didn't know any of this growing up. How did learning about those struggles that your father had later in life change how you see your dad? Oh, I gave him, it allowed me to give him so much grace because when I first started going to therapy, you know, I thought that I didn't like my father

because of how he did my mom. Really didn't have anything to do with that. It was part of it, but what it really was, like I was upset because, you know, I felt like he disciplined me for things that he never taught me. And it was like, damn, this guy, you know, he was very hard on me in a lot of ways, you know what I mean?

But it was literally because he was dealing with his own issues. And so once he told me that, and I found that out about him, everything made perfect sense. I mean, everything from the infidelity to how he used to discipline me, everything made perfect sense.

So it just allowed me to give him a whole lot of grace. And I wish he would have shared a lot of those things with me earlier, which is why I'm so big on sharing them with my kids now. How do you think your relationship with your dad, especially before you even knew any of this, played into the experiences of having anxiety or being a people pleaser?

Like, how did that impact you? The people pleasing, people pleasing came from when I was getting molested when I was eight years old. And the reason I know that is because when I was eight years old and I was getting molested, when I wanted to make the young lady stop doing it, she would call me ugly and she would say I had a big nose and like she really just started to like mess with me mentally when

I would tell her to stop, right? And so I just let her do it because I didn't want to experience that. Like to me, the experience of being called ugly and saying I had a big nose and all of that crazy stuff, that was worse than what she was actually doing to me. And that's a psychological mindfuck too, because it's not like it didn't feel good when I was that age, right? So all of that, that's where the people pleasing came in. I learned that in therapy years ago.

Like that's what made me a people pleaser. And the type of people pleaser that you will allow people to run over you and do you dirty, but you don't care because you feel like you're keeping the peace by making them, you know, making them happy. So, dang, what was the other plan? What, yeah, whatever. How your relationship with your father,

particularly before you knew his struggles, played into the anxiety that you felt? Oh, yeah. I mean, probably just trying to impress him all the time. You know, especially when I wasn't in school no more and I was in night school and, you know, he'd pull up to the house and then you'd jump up and act like you was doing something. You'd go outside and act like you was cutting grass or, you know, you were trying to trigger life out

just because I knew he would be on my ass so much. But yeah, I think in a lot of ways, he was the person that I wanted to impress the most in my life. And that turned into, and that's fine, I don't know why I'm just connecting these dots now. That turned into me subconsciously stunting on him.

What do you mean? Because it's like, yo, I don't know if you ever really believed in me because I do you mean? Because it's like, yo, I don't know if you ever really believed in me. Cause I remember when you would compare me to like, you know, my cousins who played football and you know, like, don't you want to be like them? You out here always getting in trouble,

blah, blah, blah, this and that. And so it's just like, you know, when you start to achieve success and you're actually doing things that nobody from your hometown has ever done, you find yourself stunting on, yeah, pops. Yeah, yeah, pops, yeah, yeah, yeah, now what?

I'm the man now, you know what I mean? Like that's how you, that's at least how I registered it. So I think the reality is all I really wanted to do was impress them. I'm really just a little boy who always just wanted to impress my dad and wanted my dad to say, yo, I'm proud of you, son, which he has done, you know? My mom is, my mom set me free so long ago, because I remember my mom saying to me, years, years, years, years, years, years, years ago, she said, you have accomplished more than anybody in this family has ever accomplished. And she said to me, but just always be happy you're making a living. And that's always been my mind state.

I don't get too high on any of this. I don't get too low on any of this. I'm just happy that I'm able to make a living and you know now I'm in a position to help others make a little living too. I would love to have you speak directly to the person that's with us right now that's listening or watching us and you've had this breakthrough. So you know it's possible but you know if you think back to those moments in your life, and you've told us about a bunch of them where you're really struggling, what would you tell the person that feels like they're, they don't feel worthy, they're struggling, they just, what do you want them to know about the strength within them, about how to think about this moment in their life, so that they can get to that point where they feel what you feel. First thing I would say is say thank you.

Regardless of what condition you're in, what position you're in, what's going on in your life, you're alive. You're breathing. So that means that God, the creator, whatever you want to call that entity, has a reason for you to still be here. So say thank you and be grateful. And then from there, just be of service. And you start with being of service to yourself

because you can't help anybody else until you help yourself first. So whatever it is that you're going through, figure out a way to get through it, figure out a way to find some healing from it. I don't know if it's therapy, I don't know if it's just simply taking your shoes off and going to do some grounding, some breathing exercises,

some meditation, something. Find a way to serve yourself, to put yourself in a position where you can get on your healing journey. And then just go out there and start serving others. Just find something, find somebody to go help. Like go volunteer at the local food bank. Go help somebody take their groceries to the car. Just find some way of being of service.

And I feel like, man, you'll start to see your life transform in ways that you can't even imagine. And you'll start to love yourself more. I think that's one of the things that a lot of people like, too, man. We just like real genuine self love, you know, because the world is always making us feel inferior. So it's very hard to feel, you know, like you're a person, you know,

worthy of love if you can't look in the mirror and say to yourself, man, you know, I really genuinely love you. Like I stay, I stay on my Michael Jackson shit. Like if you want to make the world a better place, you got to take a look at yourself and make that change. Like you got to talk to that person in the mirror. And when you talk to that person in the mirror

and that person has gratitude and that purpose, that person's purpose is to serve. Cause I always tell folks your true purpose in life is service to others. Like everything we're doing is of service. This podcast is of service, man. People literally go and they listen to Mel Robbins podcast cause they're trying to find answers

to something that's going on in their life. And hopefully, you know, information is being dispensed that does it for them. So you just got to find your purpose by just going out there, being grateful and going out there to serve, serve people, find somebody to serve, serve, just serve. And I promise you, you'll see your life change

in ways that you can't even imagine. I mean, that, what you just said is actually, it's the Holy Grail. It is, like everybody's like, I don't know what my purpose is. You just told us what your purpose is. Your purpose is to serve and to work on yourself, to be a better version of yourself. You actually give guidance on page 36

of Get Honest or Die Lying. I absolutely love this. Human beings that might have started out in one place, but have the potential to go somewhere else. I'd encourage you to look for that same potential in the people you meet and more importantly, in yourself. We are all works in progress. The more we can embrace that process

and let go of the unnecessary judgment and the holier than thou attitudes, the quicker you'll be able to evolve into the best version of yourself. That's right. What are your parting words? Keep God first, stay humble, keep working. That's literally my mindset. When I tell you, I'm just happy to be here. When I tell you I'm just a kid from Moncks Corner South,

Carolina, who is just extremely grateful for the journey that God has me on. I love being, I'm 46 years old. I love being me. I love my life. I love my wife. I love my four daughters. I love the circle of people that I have around me that I call family. That's it. Keep God first.

Stay humble. Keep working. That's my mindset. It is just radiating off you. Like you can feel, like you were talking about laying on the ground and feeling the energy, you can feel the authenticity of that energetic alignment in your soul when you say those words. Thank you.

That's it. Keep God first, stay humble, keep working. That's literally my mindset every day. I keep God first. You know, I was raised a Jehovah witness. My grandmother was a Baptist. So all I ever knew was you believe in something. There is a God. My father was a Jehovah witness until he got this fellowship, but then he got into Islam, but there was always God. So God is always there. That's

number one. Stay humble. Yo, all of this can go away tomorrow. Like literally, all of it can go away tomorrow. The same person you meet up is the same person you meet on the way down. So it's like treat the CEO the same way you treat the custodian. You know, I feel like there's a lot of people, you know, hopefully when I'm not around, they say good things about me just because of how I carry myself when it comes, you know, to other humans. And stay working, because what else you going to do? And when I say stay working, it don't even necessarily mean a job.

Just stay working on yourself, because as long as you're alive, you're a work in progress and God has more work for you to do. Wow. We went to church today with Charlamagne. I'll tell you. Well, I hope you keep working because we're all benefiting from it. Thank you for having me. You are, you, you are like, you are a blessing. You know, uh, I don't know if you realize it, but you touch so many different people.

Like there's not a demographic of people I can point to and say, oh, that's the Mel Robbins listener. Cause I have so many different people come to me and be like, yo, you know Mel Robbins, my wife literally just gave me your book last week. You know, I talked to people like Jason Wilson. They speak so highly about you. Like, you are a real light to people, man.

So just please keep doing what you're doing because we need, we need people like you in the world. Oh, well thank you. Absolutely. I can receive that. Thank you. And the let them theory is life changing. Yes.

Man, cause I used to say, let them drown. Let them, oh shit. Yeah, I gotta get rid of the drown part. That's a little tough. Yeah, well because then you're going down with them. Yes, exactly, exactly. And I just like let them, let them. Yeah. Like if everybody makes their own choices, let them. Yeah, you know, you're going down with them. Yes, exactly, exactly. So I just like let them. Let them.

Everybody makes their own choices, let them. Yeah, you know, I had a really interesting conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's son, Martin, and his wife, Andrea, on their podcast, My Legacy. And as we were talking about it, he said, you know, Mel, this is my dad's teaching. Because choosing peace does not mean surrender. It's actually a sign of strength.

And managing your response is power. And when you surrender your peace and your love to hatred, then you actually lose your power. It's a choice to let them show up with hate or let them show up however they're gonna show up and then hold my power and let me choose how I respond. Because taking responsibility for your life is, like let's look at the word responsibility. It's the ability to respond. And you are a person who has responded to the twists

and turns of your life. You started by talking about choice. You understand the extraordinary, enormous, transformative power of the choices that you make. That's right. The good ones, the bad ones, but the ultimate choice to then extend grace to yourself and to figure out the kind of person that you wanna be

and the kind of life that you wanna live. And you've made a decision to be of service and to lead with love. And that choice has transformed your life. It's transforming your marriage, your daughters, all of the people that listen to you around the world. It's so powerful. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I fucking love you. See all that gratitude? I fucking love you, Charlemagne. I love you more, Mel. Thank you. Oh, and I love you too. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Still that gratitude. I fucking love you, Charlemagne. I love you more, Mel. Thank you. And I love you too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for choosing to spend time together with us. Thank you for listening to something that will help you create a better life.

And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And if you take Charlemagne's advice today, be of service. There is zero doubt that you will have a better life. Alrighty, I'll see you in a few days. A three-time New York Times bestselling author and a Wimmy and Emmy award-winning executive producer. And if you're listening to this conversation today, because somebody, oh, I should hold on. Charlemagne is also the founder of a publishing imprint.

Black, the BBBs are killing me here. Might take some water. He's also, is it the founder? Okay, go back up. He's got so many things. Let me, I feel like I'm like, peace. Holy shit. Great. Let me, I feel like I'm like, like, peace. Holy shit. That breaks.

Thank you, Mel. Wow. I needed that. We needed that. No, that, that, yeah, that resentment conversation, I needed that more than you know. Well, I'm happy it could help because I used to be a resentful piece of shit.

Right? I'm not a could help because I used to be a resentful piece of shit. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach,

psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.